By now, we all know that Matt Freese didn't have the best outing for the United States men's national team on Sunday in the 2025 Concacaf Gold Cup. The New York City FC goalkeeper's passing error allowed Haiti to score in the 19th minute of the match, evening it at 1-1 not just nine minutes after the USMNT went up on Malik Tillman's headed goal.
The UMNT went on to win the game 2-1 and finish the group stage leading the tournament in all categories, including wins (3), goals (8), and join-fewest goals allowed (1). But the sloppy play was a bad look for Freese, who earned his first cap for the USMNT not three weeks ago in a friendly loss to Türkiye, and became the staring goalkeeper of choice for USMNT head coach Mauricio Pochettino only on June 19.
Haiti's Don Deedson Louicius scores against the USMNT | Courtesy Fox Sports
The good news for Freese is that he's still Pochettino's No 1.
The head coach stood by Freese after the game, essentially saying that mistakes happen. "No, nothing to say," Pochettino said in the postgame press conference. "Because this type of accident happens, and it's going to happen in the future, but we're so happy with him and with the quality of our keepers, of course, I mean the way that they are supporting each other. No, I think that can happen [with] any keeper."
Needless to say, it's important to have the person who puts together the lineup in your corner. More importantly, Pochettino clearly sees the team for what it is, namely a promising if fragile work in progress, and is too intelligent to fixate on single mistake. Besides, any national head coach would take one goal allowed per 270 minutes of tournament play: Freese is safe for now.
Andrew Leigh
The critics take aim
But the punditry's response to the play has been merciless. Former USMNT star Landon Donovan called for Freese to be replaced by Matt Turner, the team's previous top choice, for what the Associated Press termed a "goalkeeping gaffe." The FotMob algorithm gave Freese a poor 5.5 player rating, the lowest on the team and the second-lowest of any player on the field that night.
Then there's the statement that former USMNT forward Herculez Gomez posted to X. "This is easily the worst generation of American Goalkeepers in #USMNT history," he wrote above a clip of Haiti's goal.
Gomez was even more ruthless on Futbol Americas, the show he hosts on ESPN FC. “I don’t understand why Matt Freese is playing," Gomez said. If Matt Turner is the goalkeeper with the most international experience and the one thing that he has lacking right now is games, sharpness, then why not give him these games Matt Freese is fourth, fifth-best option you have right now realistically because Patrick Schulte is not here, because Zack Steffen is not here, because insert goalkeeper who was there at the last camp isn’t here. And you go to Matt Freese? I do not, for the life of me, know why he is starting in these games."
Ouch.
Matthew Mangam
That backpass...
While Gomez isn't wrong, he's not entirely fair.
The ball that Freese mishit came from a back-pass that Tim Ream played under pressure: Ream recovered the ball inside the box, and instead of turning to send a pass upfield – or knocking it out of bounds for a Haiti throw – the 37-year-old center-back directed a ball to Freese. The problem is that the ball was immediately closed down by striker Frantzdy Pierrot, who began his run when he saw Ream play the pass. Pierrot's movement helped force Freese into scuffing his attempt to get the ball to John Tolkin, which was then poached and finished by Don Deedson Louicius.
To be clear, nobody in the USMNT defense crowned themselves in glory in that run of play. From Ream's questionable decision-making, to Freese's mis-hit pass, to center-back Chris Richards allowing Pierrot to make the run, to a general lack of urgency in the squad, the entire defensive unit went slack at the same time.
In many ways, it was closer to the USMNT's performances in the two friendlies earlier this month, when the team lost to Türkiye 2-1 at Pratt & Whitney Stadium at East Hartford, CT, then to Switzerland 4-0 at GEODIS Park in Nashville, TN. The USMNT defense looked lost in both of those matches, folding under the pressure asserted by attacks with European pedigree.
The USMNT's stumble against Haiti wasn't lethal – the Yanks went on to win the game, after all – but it brought to mind those two earlier losses. Once again, the team's fragility was on display when facing an opponent that could force the US defense to make a mistake.
Good results papering over lingering problems
In some ways, the criticism directed at Freese is a proxy for the general dissatisfaction with this team. This is a Golden Generation, a young and energetic team filled with European starters and MLS up-and-comers that's helmed by a superstar head coach in Pochettino, but this team continues to underperform, suffering four consecutive losses in a row heading into the Concacaf Gold Cup.
Before the two friendly losses earlier this month, the team fell to Panama 1-0 and Canada 2-1 in the 2025 Concacaf Nation's League in March. The US scored just two goals in those four games while allowing nine – seven by Turner in three games, and two by Freese in one – underlining persistent issues with both the attack and the defense.
The current three-game winning run in the Concacaf Gold Cup is papering over those lingering problems. Or to be more specific, the five-goal explosion against a poor Trinidad and Tobago in the first group stage of the tournament gave this squad the false hope that they figured out how to score.
The USMNT hasn't been easy to watch since that 5-0 win. First there was the plodding 1-0 win over Saudi Arabia, a slow and disjointed game saved by one magnificent goal courtesy of Richards. The 2-1 win over Haiti was even less compelling, as an incoherent US attack took one low-quality shot after another.
Not all the performances are bad. PSV's Malik Tillman is arguably the team's breakout player this tournament, and Charlotte FC's Patrick Agyemang has two goals in three games, but it's fair to expect more from a US squad playing at home in a competition they aim to win.
More to the point, it's tricky to criticize a player like Real Salt Lake's Diego Luna, the 21-year-old attacker who provided two assists against Trinidad and Tobago and hasn't done much since, or Vancouver Whitecaps' Brian White, who is shredding MLS with 10 goals in 12 games played but who doesn't yet have the confidence of Pochettino. You can't pile on a player for what they're incapable of doing when on the field, or for the limitations that prevent them from seeing playing time. Instead, it's easier to fixate on a mistake like Freese's, and put the blame at his feet.
The best defense is a strong attack, but the USMNT doesn't have that, at least not yet. That puts pressure on the backline, which is still searching for the kind of determination and onfield chemistry needed in a tournament like this one. That leaves the goalkeeper, who has made just one error so far in three games.
Pochettino understands that, which is why Freese is likely still his No 1, and we're likely to see the Iceman again in goal when the US faces Costa Rica on Sunday.
